


to be alone

by jeannedarc



Category: VIXX
Genre: Bit of a twist, M/M, Thief AU, Vague angst, brief mention of others - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-05-02 16:41:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14548953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeannedarc/pseuds/jeannedarc
Summary: Jaehwan, a professional seductor and subsequent thief, gets his life saved by quite probably an angel. Everything else falls into place after that.





	to be alone

**Author's Note:**

> written for [sekoret night](http://sekoretnightfic.tumblr.com) several months ago. thank you as always to [riley](http://http://archiveofourown.org/users/toastyhyun) who saves me every time.

It was so early in the morning that the grey dawn, lined with smoke and chemicals, had yet to peek in between the slightly-parted, dusty curtains of the penthouse in which he had spent the night. But that didn’t matter so much; Jaehwan hadn’t slept a wink, had been too busy accompanying his current target, a high-ranking but corrupt officer of the police force, to bed, and then to sleep. He still felt a little bit sticky between the legs, as per usual; no amount of cleaning up available to him in situations like these made him feel truly clean. 

He should have drugged the bastard; it had occurred to him as he was coming home in the back of the man’s private car that he should have taken up Sanghyuk’s offer for a couple pills that would make this a hell of a lot easier.

Jaehwan, though, loved a challenge more than he loved most things.

It was only at four in the morning, when the man was snoring loud enough to be heard anywhere within a five-mile radius, that Jaehwan ventured to climb out of bed, testing a couple times before rolling away, breath held tight in his chest. (It was only in part to keep from making a sound; the rest was that he was sure if he inhaled any more cigar smoke and cobweb residue, he’d keel over right there in the middle of a stranger’s bedroom.)

He padded barefoot to where the pile of clothes he’d long since discarded lay, stepped into wrinkled trousers, draped his shirt over himself. When he looked down at his chest, at the bite marks left in his sternum, he scrunched up his nose in distaste. _Everyone,_ he reasoned, trying to keep himself calm, _had a part of their job they didn’t like._

Still, he was pretty sure he could clone the jerk with everything left in and on him. He didn’t like looking a mess any more than he liked being one.

Like the true professional he was, Jaehwan avoided the big things -- custom suits, jewelry, money, fur, sculptures -- and instead found himself drawn to little corners of things in this big, lofty top floor. Every piece of furniture, as few and far between as they were, was something well-worn, probably to distract from the actual value in this nightmare hellscape. A single couch in the living room, a rickety dining table in the center of a too-big-for-one kitchen, a weightlifting set with half the dumbbells missing -- the only room with any sign of life had, in fact, been the bedroom. The lights, what of them worked, cast everything in a glow that had the hair on the back of Jaehwan’s neck standing up.

Everything too huge for him to carry was draped in tarp, but his curiosity got the better of him, and he peeked behind each and every one, marvelling over both the craftsmanship of the actual art as well as the price tags that were sure to have come attached, the invoices faxed to the local government offices to better outfit this collection. The officer he’d made a fool of fancied himself an art collector, it seemed. Jaehwan smirked softly to himself, knowing that there were far smaller pieces to find, if these were any indication.

He ended up sifting through mail stacked feet high in the office, hands learning the shapes of envelope upon envelope. Most of them were full of drugs, and he tucked more than his fair share into the folds of his coat when he got the chance, but eventually he found one that felt more solid. He slit the front of the bubble mailer and, upon discovering its contents, grinned so big he was sure his face would crack.

Just then, there was a big crash from the other room -- the bedroom, if he remembered right, though he hadn’t thought to memorise the whole apartment, just the potential exits -- and his blood turned to ice-cold mercury, snatching the breath right from him.

“Where the fuck did you go?” demanded a rumble from the same direction as the crashing. So Jaehwan did what he did best even as the spitting, red-faced man stumbled his way into the room, wrapped in a silk robe and absolutely nothing else, his Bozo hairdo matted and sticking out at odd angles and his chest hair still mussed from the way-too-heavy manhandling he'd gotten the night before.

Jaehwan ran, darting out the patio door and totally ignoring how its glass panels shattered when he slammed it behind him, laughing all the way.

The patio was a dead-end at first glance, but a quick survey over the railing, taken quickly as his pursuant attempted to navigate a floorful of broken glass in bare feet, gave him a view of a rather rickety-looking fire escape. With a high-pitched noise of glee, Jaehwan swung himself over the rail, ignoring how it rocked and groaned in protest under his weight. It was a slow descent, and eventually he heard Officer Clown enter the patio, swearing the whole way. Safety, however, was of the utmost importance.

He was about halfway down when the stairway physically moved beneath him, sinking. It dropped so far that Jaehwan could hear the bottom rung scrape upon the beaten-down concrete several levels below. Rust clung to his sweating palms as he dragged himself down the stairs. The bubble mailer that contained his spoils was tucked into his waistband. Every time it shifted in its spot he swore under his breath.

He could almost feel his mark’s sweat against his skin as the distance between them shrank. It was too close for comfort. Something had to give. Hopefully it wouldn't be the stairs as he was trying to get down.

At the top of the first story, he made a decision, sucked in a deep breath, dropped the rest of the way. He hit the street, tucking and rolling, protecting the package as avidly as he'd normally protect his face. The man, from his place a couple floors up, took a good long look at Jaehwan, standing on the street, from his former spot on the ladder.

He flashed a beam of a smile, the bare idea of sunlight streaming through thick, smoggy clouds and catching his gleaming incisors. He blew a kiss, and started running again.

Jaehwan clutched the package to his chest, lungs contracting heavily, chest tight as his feet carried him further, further, further. Somewhere behind him echoed distant cries, calls of ‘thief!’ and ‘stop him!’ and various strings of obscenities.

Even still, he ran. It didn’t matter what the man wanted, if he had murderous intentions or just wanted his property back. He had let Bozo use him, and Jaehwan, in turn, had used Bozo for his own gain. He could feel his burner phone in his pocket, silent now but calling to him, and couldn’t wait to fence the package.

When he managed to lose his pursuant around a dark corner, Jaehwan heaved so hard he swore he was going to be sick, but he admired his spoils anyhow, the torn cover of its cheap bubble mailer, now a somewhat shredded mess from all the rough treatment -- revealing a portrait of a woman, small but invaluable, a collector’s piece, a trophy among trophies. No wonder the fat bastard had given such chase.

He shoved his dripping fringe out of his eyes, swept it back from his forehead, and realised all too slowly that he couldn’t stop smiling, that his cheeks ached and tears had begun to form at the corners of his eyes. His legs were still sore from the night he’d spent with the crooked cop, and the very ends of a good, workable drunk sloshed about in his belly, but none of that mattered now, because he was going to be a millionaire.

The voice intruded once again, that of his target, calling out for him, and he picked up running again, heart thrumming hard enough to crack his sternum. He ducked out of the alleyway and to the adjacent street, beheld the city skyline overhead, bleak and bleary. The smog that hung low to the city's streets clung to his ankles, composed of chemical discharge and car exhaust; it was thick enough that it made it harder for him to breathe as he ran, but he charged on until the voice faded behind him. Even then he continued until he found his apartment building, blocks and blocks and blocks away from the site of his theft.

He stared up into the building’s face as he caught his breath, all decrepit and crumbling and ugly, the portrait of something from a horror film, and heaved a big sigh, head dropping so low his gaze met the cracks upon cracks in the sidewalk. His leaden limbs practically dragged behind him as he entered the building, portrait in one hand, phone in the other, ready to make a deal and, at long last, get some rest.

His feet dragged as he made his way up the seven flights of stairs, no pep left to his step. He set his prize down just inside the apartment door. His roommates either were not home, or were fast asleep. Good. He so hated to interrupt their delicate sleep schedules. He stripped in his bedroom and dumped himself into the communal shower, sat in the bottom and watched the water swirl around the drain endlessly.

When he finally got into bed, the first stirrings of life could be heard from the kitchen, and the smell of dark coffee filled his senses. Jaehwan buried his face in his pillow and blinked until he could see nothing else. Sleep took him. He dreamt of bathing in money instead of water.

\---

When he woke, it was to the sounds of discord, yelling, anger. Jaehwan shuddered, drawing the blankets higher around himself, trying to fend off the outside world as best he could in this vulnerable state. Not that he was afraid of being attacked, of course, just that his roommates argued like cat and dog, a rather charming feature he hadn't known about upon moving in with them.

He flung the covers back, rolled out of bed straight onto his feet, and stomped his way into the living room where this heated debate was taking place. "Do you _mind_?" he asked in a huff, pressing the heel of his palm into his eye and trying to scrub the exhaustion from it.

Sanghyuk looked up first, a a dopey grin pinned into place on his face. "Do we mind what?"

Hongbin probably hadn't looked up from his computer in several hours; Jaehwan was doing him a favour by asking them to stop, if anyone asked. (They never did.) He fixed his huge brown eyes on Jaehwan and pursed his lips seriously.

Jaehwan glanced from one face to the other, and shook his head. "I was _trying_ to sleep when you two assholes woke me up fighting about-- what were you fighting about?"

Sanghyuk's grin doubled, and Hongbin had the nerve to join him. "We were arguing about whether or not to wake you up." A lie, of course, because Sanghyuk would have just done it no matter what Hongbin said. Their youngest paused to shift in tone, something light and conversational. "We ordered dinner."

"It's that Thai place you like," Hongbin joined in, stretching his arms over his head so far that Jaehwan, across the room, heard his shoulders pop. "The one around the corner? Maybe you could put some clothes on and join us."

Jaehwan looked down, realised he had fallen asleep without dressing for the occasion, and grumbled. His other hand went to his face now, rubbing the remainder of sleep from himself, and stalked stark naked back into his bedroom. He dressed in the least dirty things he could find lying on his floor. He heard front door open and close, the sensor arming it dinging loudly throughout the apartment. In response the downstairs neighbours played their favourite song, a percussion track done by a solo broomist, right onto their ceiling.

"One of these days they're gonna punch a hole in the floor," moaned Jaehwan, checking himself in the mirror. He looked like shit, all puffy and red-eyed, not nearly enough sleep the last couple days. When he reemerged, Sanghyuk had the nerve to try and comment on it, only to earn a headlock from his beloved elder, a fierce noogie.

Jaehwan, for his part, flopped on the couch, flipping on the television and searching through the pay-per-view porno titles, reading them aloud. "Busty Backdoor Bangers 5," he announced in his most licentious voice. "Hey, you wanna watch that with me?"

Sanghyuk rolled his eyes, but hopped down from the kitchen counter anyway, hard enough that the floor groaned beneath his steadily-increasing weight. He seemed to grow a full centimeter taller every day, at least to Jaehwan’s eye. "Not really, no, 'specially since Hongbin is gonna be back in five minutes with our dinner."

"You know, I hear about dinner-and-a-movie dates all the time," Jaehwan pointed out, smirking and drawing his legs up toward his chest. "I have to go visit the fence tonight, maybe you two could have a romantic night in? Get into some backdoor banging one through four of your own?"

"You're never gonna give that up, are you?" Sanghyuk did much the same, making room on their dilapidated couch so that Hongbin could join whenever he got back.

"Not until you buy me new sheets."

"It was one time and we're not dating. How'd your job go last night?"

"You _did_ hear me mention I'm going to the fence tonight, right?" He didn't really want to discuss the chase, but Sanghyuk was a fuckin' needler, would get him to talk about at least some part of it in some way or another. He got up from the couch, leaving the preview of Busty Backdoor Bangers 5 playing on loop while he disappeared into his bedroom, returning with the still-partially-wrapped portrait. He thrust it into Sanghyuk's hands, lifting the shredded bit of brown paper. Sanghyuk gasped at the sight of it, nearly dropped it, and Jaehwan rolled his eyes in turn, taking his spoils back with a swiftness that left Sanghyuk positively pouting. "Be careful, that's worth at least our next three rent payments and a new car for each of us."

"You're so _lucky_ ," Sanghyuk all but whined, folding his arms across his chest. "You get to take all this cool stuff and I get to figure out the best way to position a dead body so no one knows it's a dead body."

"Yeah, because murder is so uncool, right?" Jaehwan shot back with a second, more intense roll of his eyes, setting the portrait carefully on the arm of the couch, watching it, hand hovering over it in case gravity decided to do its awful black magic and knock it to the ground.

Hongbin made his reentry just then, slamming the door behind him like he always did, and the portrait wobbled precariously. Jaehwan slapped his hand down on it, crinkling the paper enveloping it. He heaved a very, very dramatic sigh.

"Oh, Busty Backdoor Bangers 5?" Hongbin asked, eyes focused on the television as he took his seat between Jaehwan and Sanghyuk, setting the overstuffed bag of food on the floor. "Sweet. I've been waiting for this since the last Busty Backdoor Bangers. Good storyline."

"You know," drawled Sanghyuk, giving Hongbin a look that defied any and all explanation, "sometimes you say things with your mouth that make me doubt you're even a human being."

Hongbin opened his mouth to answer, and Jaehwan's sigh grew exponentially. "Give me my food before I strangle you both," he demanded, draping himself over Hongbin's lap and rummaging through the bag himself. "Don't you have work to do? You know, away from me?"

" _We_ had a date," Sanghyuk says seriously, fixing Hongbin with a look that spelled nothing but trouble. " _You’re_ the one going to see the fence tonight."

"You're right!" Jaehwan popped up from the couch, catching Hongbin's face with the back of his head, the contact making a resounding crack. He gave Hongbin a look of apology as he clambered off the couch, cradling his own head for a minute. "Leave my food in the fridge." He headed for the door, then remembered that he didn't have the necessary components of this exchange, and rolled his eyes at himself, running back across the floor and skidding to a halt just in time to not fall over himself. He snatched up his portrait, and grinned at the pair of them, flashing a peace sign with his free hand and wiggling it at the pair of them.

When he was gone, lungs filled with night air, his fucking head tingled. He hated to be touched.

\---

It took several trips back, but eventually he made his way to Seokjin's, sold off the art, settling on a fair price -- not what Jaehwan wanted, of course, because nothing is ever what he wants it to be when it comes to what he steals -- and a drop off point for him to receive his payment in a business 48 hours.

(Seokjin, upon seeing this particular piece of art, let out a low whistle, offered a wolfish smile unbefitting of his usually charming face. Jaehwan had nodded, mirroring the expression.)

He was on the way home, the cold wrapping fingers around his throat. He wondered idly if he was going to get sick, what with all the pollution in the city offending his delicate immune system constantly. His coat wasn't warm enough. He'd have to buy a new one sometime in the next couple days, provided his transaction went through.

His thoughts drifted, as they always did when he was walking about the city, but he could have sworn he was being followed. Then again, that whole life of a criminal thing left him with a bitter paranoia that dripped down the back of his throat, a sinus infection, ruining his ability to think and do clearly. He took the long way home, zigzagging through back alleys, stepping over homeless people and nearly tripping into puddles of sewage that leaked from the sides of buildings. He breathed in the stench of garbage, exhaled carbon monoxide and light pollution. No sane person would follow him here unless they had to.

In his fear, Jaehwan circled around, took the longest route, doubling back over certain places, stopping where he could, peering into shopfront windows, making it seem as if he were just some kind of lost tourist. It worked, usually, although it seriously detracted from his attempt to bring his good news home to his decidedly impatient roommates. Eventually, though, the feeling of eyes blazing into the back of his neck faded. He waited a little longer, then headed back to the apartment.

Things were surprisingly quiet when he had to practically kick in the door in order to come in; the sound filled the silence completely, and even he, accustomed to noise, even kind of enjoying of it, winced, shrunk back.

"Door's broken again," he announced as he entered the office to drop his envelope stuffed with various papers on Hongbin's desk. Hongbin groaned, knowing he’d have to go outside, but as far as Jaehwan was concerned the exercise, getting out of the house, seeing the sun from time to time was good for Hongbin. "Where'd Sanghyuk go? Usually you two are yelling at each other the entire time I'm gone."

"Job," Hongbin said simply, lifting a shoulder, adjusting whatever tightness in his muscle might have been there after hours of steady hacking. He should have been disappointed that he and Sanghyuk were separated. He wasn’t. If Jaehwan didn't know him better, it would be easy to miss the edge of worry to his voice. Hongbin didn't look up from his screen when he spoke, kept typing so quickly that it sounded like one of those bad computer montages in a film. Jaehwan resisted the urge to laugh. "Sit down, I have to tell you something."

"You're bossy today." Still, he did know Hongbin pretty well, and did as he was instructed, taking a seat on the corner of Hongbin's desk, shifting as it did beneath his weight.

Hongbin finished a last couple strings of whatever he was doing, swivelled in his chair to face Jaehwan, any and all of the usual unfocused traces of humour in his face erased completely. He folded his hands in his lap -- to keep from fidgeting, Jaehwan knew -- and started in the most grave tone. "I got a couple messages from some feelers I have inside the Family," he began, and Jaehwan swore his blood ran cold, even preemptively. "Nothing really substantial, but...I think you robbed the wrong dude."

"Which one?" Jaehwan asked, tasting bile and swallowing thickly.

"This last one. He had some pretty close connections with some pretty important people, I guess." Hongbin's mouth set into a grim line, and Jaehwan started to shake a little just at the look of him. "You have to be more careful. Maybe lay low for awhile?"

Shaking his head, Jaehwan hopped off his perch on Hongbin's desk. "I'll just have to change clientele awhile. This isn't anything super important. We can't afford for me to not work, you know?" And here he was a little hysterical, on the verge of laughing just to keep from crying. "I'll just try different people. Stick to ladies for awhile. Their husbands aren't shit."

"Hyung, that isn't necessarily the best idea," insisted Hongbin, but in a quieter voice. They had been together so long that Hongbin knew when he was fighting a losing battle, because any fight with Jaehwan was just that. "You're gonna get yourself killed."

"When have I ever," Jaehwan muttered as he left the room, lingering in the kitchen, pretending for a long while to be interested in his as-yet untouched Thai food when his stomach was in the midst of a series of somersaults that would no doubt end in him losing his entire meal were he to consume anything.

In time he carried himself to bed, clothes on, wrapped around a pillow, definitely not still quaking as he thought about the finite nature of a life of crime until sleep overtook him.

He dreamt of a face. A man. Vaguely familiar, but in ways he couldn't place, like he'd seen the man once or twice in passing but wouldn't know him from Adam if pressed. There was nothing else distinctive about the dream, but when he awoke he felt far more reassured than he had when he had fallen asleep.

\---

Somewhere in the dark city, Jaehwan was lost -- a feat for him, considering his natural sense of direction combined with a long few years of learning these streets on foot -- and sure someone was following him again. Every time he turned around, though, he was the only one on the streets.

He'd just finished a job, a rich older woman who liked Jaehwan's mouth just as much as she’d claimed when they met, and was wasting no time in making his way to his fence's office, but fuck if someone wasn't right behind him the entire time. If he closed his eyes he could feel breath on the back of his neck, hands seizing him by the back of his jacket.

He sang under his breath, stilling his nerves, and each corner he turned made him a little bolder, a little louder. If the music suddenly stopped...someone would notice. Right?

Except it was three in the morning. He was the only soul he could see in these streets. There were no distractions he could pretend to be interested in this late at night, not without ducking into a bar and giving himself no way out.

A neon sign flickered in the distance, a block and a half down. He sprinted that way, trying to shake the feeling as best he could. Why the fuck he didn't bring a weapon, something with which to keep himself safe, he'd never comprehend.

When he entered the bar he forgot how to breathe for a moment, the air so thick with smoke and desperation that it nearly choked off all access to his lungs he had. He checked over his shoulder but no tail worth their salt was going to follow him in that close. Stupid. He cursed himself, and made his way to a table off to the side, close enough to the door that he could see someone entering. A waitress -- cute as hell, actually, big eyes and long, straight hair pulled back into a pristine ponytail. She batted her eyelashes and Jaehwan pretended not to notice, only gave her the attention she seemed to want when she promised to bring him a whiskey neat before sauntering away. Jaehwan had no qualms about checking her out as she went, but really it was a distraction, trying to get his mind off the terror he'd experienced just for a brief moment, if not the terror of the last few days.

Moments passed. His anxiety started to melt away, assisted by alcohol that he took in short sips. It was late enough that there weren't a ton of people here, but the hum of conversation helped too, assisted by a billiards game going on somewhere behind him. The clack of resin on resin drained the last of his nerves. He breathed normally. He even asked the waitress if he could buy a cigarette. Incredible, how quickly he blended in, how soon he forgot to watch the door.

Everything was going well, the taste of nicotine on his lips, when some big, bald-headed ugly decided to approach him, myriad tattoos poking out from his sleeves, the neckline of his shirt. "Are you the idiot who robbed my friend?"

Fuck. Family connection. This wouldn't end well, even if the idiot was drunk as a skunk and couldn't form cohesive words that well. "I don't know what you're talking about," Jaehwan announced, standing up from his seat and dusting off imaginary whatever that had settled on his thighs, "so I suggest you go back to whatever inkwell you crawled out of and leave me alone."

"Whatever what?" The guy blinked, and Jaehwan didn't waste time, made his way toward the exit, grateful for the chance to get away.

Of course, things didn't work out that easily. The doorman, who had so kindly allowed him entry, now blocked his escape, six foot four of solid mass, and Jaehwan was tall, was quick, but there was nothing he could do about a brick fucking wall. Of course, of _course_ he'd walked into a Family establishment. That was just his luck these days.

He made the mistake of turning his back to face his original assailant. The doorman had him in an armlock in about a half second flat. "You know there's money on your name?" asked Cueball, a garish grin that displayed practically black teeth on his face.

"I'd heard," Jaehwan replied through gritted teeth, positive he was about to have both his arms dislocated.

"You know I'm gonna get that money?" Cueball whipped out a knife from his back pocket, the loud clicking of it being opened breaking the tense silence in a room full of people ready for some real entertainment.

Hongbin's words echoed in Jaehwan's head. _Hyung, you're going to get yourself killed._ His heart in his throat, Jaehwan laughed under his breath. "I don't think you are." It hurt like hell when he did it, of course, but he used the doorman's hold on him to lift off his feet, try and kick Cueball right in his decaying mouth. He failed, missing by no less than an inch and dropping back to the floor. Doorman held him tighter, then, making another attempt impossible. Cueball pointed the knife at Jaehwan's throat. He was completely and utterly fucked.

Cueball spit in Jaehwan's face, laughed so hard he starts to hack, doubling over with the effort. He took small, stumbling steps forward, weapon hand outstretched, and Jaehwan swore his skin bubbled up with a bead of blood at the pressure of a knife point in his Adam's apple.

And then, without even realising what was happening, Jaehwan was released, dumped to the ground to groan in agony, clutching at one shoulder only to realise it made the other hurt worse. He winched his eyes shut, and above him was cacophony, a steady stream of swears to which he could assign no responsibility. When he looked up again, it was to the sight of a complete stranger standing over him, haloed in the bar lights, gun pressed to Cueball's head and whispering in his ear.

Jaehwan gasped, choking, and scrambled to his feet. He ran for the door. Only when he was out in the chilly mid-morning air did he feel any semblance of safety.

Still, he ran. It was what he was best at.

He didn't go far, not entirely sure of his surroundings -- that feeling made worse by the alcohol, by his own stupidity -- and that was how he got caught. Stopped on a corner a couple blocks away, catching his breath and praying for the spinning in his head to stop, Jaehwan turned to look back in the direction of the bar and came face to face with an angel.

Maybe not a literal angel. Maybe.

"I'm so sorry," huffed the stranger, bowing his head repeatedly, looking as apologetic as a human ever has. His face was red, a soft shade, the sort that complimented his skin beautifully. Jaehwan did his best not to stare, combination of hatred and envy and something like gratitude welling up inside him. "I thought I was going to get in there in time, and I didn't, and I shouldn't have let it get that far, I'm sorry, are you alright?"

Jaehwan blinked twice, as if this man were some mirage that would disappear if he tried hard enough to rid himself of the delusion. He rolled his shoulders once and, no, he was _not_ alright. "I need to go to a hospital?" he asked, meekness telling tall tales about the true nature of his own suspicion.

"Okay, yeah, let's go," said the man, going to fit an arm around Jaehwan and, realising that he couldn't do it like a normal good Samaritan might, shrugged. His hand snaked around Jaehwan's waist. He supported both their weight beautifully, guiding him in the direction away from the bar. "Did you drive over here?" he questioned, almost an afterthought. "I shouldn't take you from your car, if you brought one..."

"Does anyone drive here?" Jaehwan laughed dryly, rolling his eyes. "You're fine." A pause. "I didn't see you when I walked in."

"You wouldn't have. I was outside."

"Outside..." Jaehwan shifted, then, to avoid a crack in the sidewalk, but also to get a little distance between himself and a complete fucking stranger. "Are you the one who's been following me?"

"What?" Stranger shook his head then. "No, I'm Hakyeon." And he smiled, his entire face lighting up, seemingly from the core of his spirit. Jaehwan's heart fluttered so hard he tripped over a newspaper box; he sputtered, hurried to right himself, even as Hakyeon helped him up. He shook off the assistance, got up on his own.

"I'm Ken." Jaehwan's stomach twinged a bit at the alias. He didn't really know _why_ but it physically pained him not to be honest with Hakyeon in this moment. "Sorry. That was stupid. I’m actually Jaehwan. You were outside, and you needed to get in to... what, save me? But you didn't get there in time? How'd you know I needed saving?"

Hakyeon shrugged, an indifferent gesture, the complete opposite of the self he'd been a moment prior. "I just knew." He flashed his teeth again, nodding.

Jaehwan struggled to keep his wits about him, saving himself from another near-spill at the last moment. He didn't know another human being could be so stunning doing a simple thing, especially not in this nightmare shithole of a city. But then again, maybe he wasn’t used to seeing flowers growing up from cracks in concrete.

Suddenly his skin crawled with bugs, made of anxiety, of unworthiness, and the envelope of money in his jacket pocket started burning into his side. _You're gonna get yourself killed._ He ducked out of the hold Hakyeon had on him. "Sorry, I just-- I really can't go to the hospital. I have to go home."

"Let me take you home, then--"

"I can't." He thought quietly, worrying the inner corner of his mouth between his teeth. "Thank you, though, for saving my ass back there."

Hakyeon gave him a look of confusion, but agreed bodily, spine straightening. "We'll see each other soon." He spoke as if it were a fact that could be found in the encyclopedia. Jaehwan shivered at that level of confidence. Then he started again, running faster than he'd ever run, his shoulders aching so badly he might cry any moment.

Despite his better instinct, he stopped at the nearest corner to look back, but Hakyeon was nowhere to be found. A fucking ghost. Jaehwan's terror only grew as he continued running all the way home.

\---

Jaehwan had been sleeping for the better part of two days, knocked out with all the painkillers the doctor had given him after Sanghyuk had insisted they pay him a visit. He hadn't dislocated anything, but there was a lot of bruising, and Jaehwan might have played that up a little bit to _get_ the meds, but just a little. Just enough that he got a full script instead of one for a couple days.

In his medicated state, he swam, considered the implications of his last encounter -- he'd almost fucking _died_ , really would have if Hakyeon hadn't been there -- and wondered what cruel being had decided that keeping him alive was a good idea. The mob was after him. He was as good as dead at that point. _You're going to get yourself killed._

He smiled, when he was awake. Sanghyuk or Hongbin paid him little visits, made sure he was hydrated, that he ate. Sanghyuk even helped him take a shower once, though he made jokes about having to see Jaehwan naked. Jaehwan, for his part, groaned along, kept it playful and light.

There was no way Sanghyuk didn't know, if Hongbin did. But it didn't matter, because he didn't bring it up. Jaehwan didn't want to be seen as fragile; he had twice as much experience as either of them, could handle his own shit. He was just sort of burnt out, and with not a lot of people seeking out his services, he figured it was best he took a break.

Still, every once in awhile, Jaehwan thought he caught little glimpses of pity in Sanghyuk's eyes, and so every interaction ended with Jaehwan back in bed, door closed, curtains drawn, making a blackout space in which he could pop a pair of pills and just be.

More than anything, he just wanted to quit. Anything was better than this level of suffering.

On the third day, it was Hongbin who entreated Jaehwan to leave his room. "It'll be good for you," he swore up and down, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet, a strange sight to see in the utter blackness that was both Jaehwan's bedroom and his mental state. "You'll probably get to kill somebody, make a lot of money."

Jaehwan drew the covers over his head, grunting. "Don't wanna kill anyone."

He didn't see Hongbin sit next to him, just kind of felt the other's weight as the mattress sunk beside him. A hand laid on his shoulder. "You don't have to, but we're worried about you, hyung."

"M'fine."

Hongbin snorted so loudly that Jaehwan swore he heard the downstairs neighbours tell him to shut up. "That doesn't sound fake at all." Again, he didn't see it, but he knew Hongbin well enough to know he was rolling his eyes, too.

"Careful, Bin, someone might start to think you care or something," Jaehwan spat, curling up in the spot where he lay. "I'm fine. I really am."

"Okay, I didn't want to tell you, but..." And here, Hongbin leaned in to talk low in Jaehwan's ear. It was too near intimacy, too near the closeness and warmth of someone following him, hefting him from the floor of a dirty bar he didn’t even want to be in. Jaehwan, rife with medication and discomfort, reached out a hand from beneath the edge of the blanket, swatting Hongbin away. “We’re kind of low on funds, and we kind of need someone to work, and you’re the only one with a job offer.”

“Do I look okay enough to work?” And Jaehwan snapped, absolutely snapped, a big huff leaving his lungs, thick with miasma and withdrawals. Where did he leave his pill bottle anyway? But he softens almost immediately, soon as the helplessness and subsequent depression has left his body. "Why don't we have enough money?"

"Your medical bills," Hongbin intoned softly, and his eyes are a mirror of every worry currently ricocheting its way through Jaehwan's body. "Illegal doctors aren't exactly cheap. Neither are your painkillers. You kept asking for more, and I wanted to say no, but I guess Sanghyuk had the doctor on speed dial. You've been through an extra two bottles."

Two bottles? Jaehwan didn't remember two bottles, just the neverending darkness that had surrounded him at his edges. He got out of bed, stumbled right to the floor, and shook Hongbin off when the younger tried to help him back up. It was bad enough a complete fucking stranger had to help him; he didn't need pity from someone he considered a friend, too.

"I'll take a job tomorrow, then," Jaehwan slurred, unsteady on his feet even still. "I gotta...sober up first."

"There's something else," Hongbin interjected, though his hesitation immediately made the unease in Jaehwan's gut exponentialize. "So, while you've been out...there's been this guy that just kind of hangs out on the corner. I've watched him a little on the CCTV I have set up out there, and there's not a lot of him, but enough that I've taken notice of him. Have you, uh, brought anyone back?"

"Not that I know of." All the drama leaked from Jaehwan's voice, his frame, leaving him a little sullen, a lot queasy. "The only person I can think of is..."

"The guy from the bar."

"How do you know about that?" He couldn't recall telling them anything, just the late-night-early-morning of the incident, stumbling in a wreck, Sanghyuk making the mistake of trying to carry him under the shoulders in dragging him to the doctor. Everything past that point was a messy haze he didn't care to unpack in the midst of feeling sorry for himself.

"You talked about him a little on the first day." Hongbin was merciful, didn't say much more than that. "I took a couple screenshots. A little grainy -- you know how the connection gets at the end of the block -- but I was hoping they were good enough for you to give a positive ID?"

Jaehwan dragged his palms down his face, tipped his head back, groaned so loud he definitely heard the neighbours complaining. "Yeah, just...gimme a minute to be a human being again?"

Hongbin, in answer, raised a hand as he shuffled out of Jaehwan's bedroom.

In fifteen minutes, Jaehwan was showered, dressed in an entire set of clothing (sweats and a ratty t-shirt that was probably Sanghyuk's at some point, judging by how Jaehwan swam in it soon as he pulled it over his head; he might have been done with self-pity, but that didn't mean he had to sacrifice comfort), and had flushed the remainder of a mostly full bottle of pills down the toilet. All that business taken care of, he padded out to the living room, careful not to disturb Sanghyuk, who was in the middle of playing some game Jaehwan didn't recognise, on his way to Hongbin's office setup.

It was more of a lair, really, but who was he to call out his best friend when his own bedroom currently looked like the tomb of a centuries-old vampire? The smell of ancient programming texts was, at this point, a comfort.

"Here," Hongbin was saying soon as Jaehwan crossed the threshold, turning his monitor so that Jaehwan could see what he'd pulled up from the cameras.

Jaehwan moved closer, a little fog still left in his eyes even post-shower, and blinked a couple times before the mishmash of assorted pixels became an actual picture. The street corner was crowded, people making their way to and from work, but there in the middle, just standing, looking past the camera and presumably into their apartment...

"That's him," Jaehwan breathed, catching his bottom lip between his teeth just a second too late to keep the truth inside himself.

"The guy from the bar?" Hongbin took his screen back, turned his attention to Jaehwan, hands folded almost primly in his lap. "He's kind of hot, hyung."

"He saved my life," confessed Jaehwan, sinking to the floor and crossing his legs beneath himself, that floored by the revelation. "But I don't..." He wanted so badly to fake amnesia, to pretend that the events of that night had been too overwhelming for him to possibly recall, but Hongbin's bullshit detector was the strongest out of anyone he'd ever met. He'd never pass a deception check like that.

"What's his name?" asked Hongbin, almost idly, plucking at a stray thread in his worn-out distressed jeans.

"Hakyeon."

"That's it? No last name?" And Jaehwan could see the look so plainly on Hongbin's face -- he was going to find out everything about Hakyeon, given the chance.

"Not that I know of." At least he wasn't lying.

"Okay... I'll try to find out something, but in the meantime, take the rest of the night, get yourself together, maybe?" There was something unspoken lying right between the words Hongbin did say, and it took Jaehwan a minute to recognise them, but eventually he knew.

"Yeah. Thanks, Binnie."

"I'll have your job ready for you in the morning."

"Definitely. I'm ready for it." He wasn't, couldn't stand the thought of someone touching him, couldn't stand the idea of anyone else breathing down his neck ever again.

All that settled, Jaehwan got up from his spot in the floor and went back out to the living room. Sanghyuk had his game on pause, was watching Jaehwan move with evident anxiety, fidgeting with the ring he always wore on his right hand. "You okay?" he asked the elder, brows tenting a bit.

"I'm okay," Jaehwan answered easily, taking a seat on their couch and immediately draping his legs over Sanghyuk's lap. "Just...needed a couple days."

"Yeah." There was a somewhat tense silence between them, but neither Jaehwan nor Sanghyuk were one to let that last very long. "Did Hongbin tell you about the guy?"

"He showed me." Jaehwan sniffed, stretching out further, til his feet touched the arm of the couch against which Sanghyuk leaned. "He's the guy from the bar. Did you make a pass on your way out?"

"That's the thing, every time I make it all the way down there, he's always gone." The controller, nestled in the gaping hole between Sanghyuk's parted thighs, clicked loudly when Jaehwan moved his feet in an attempt to be annoying. Sanghyuk picked it up and rested it on the back of the couch. "It's like he knows I'm coming."

"Or he just knows someone is coming and doesn't like to be spooked." Jaehwan tried to remember everything about that night, about the way in which he and Hakyeon had spoken. It didn't seem much to him as if Hakyeon were the type to run scared from anything. The thought made him uncomfortable, the ghost of arms around him, of Hakyeon helping him to his feet. "I don't know. I could go look for him right now, if I wanted to."

"You probably shouldn't do that with the mob on your ass, hyung," Sanghyuk reminded him gently, hand resting on his shin, thumb tracing the knob of his ankle; Jaehwan shrunk from that touch, tucking his leg underneath himself. "Casual fun runs aren't for people in hiding."

"Who said I'm in hiding?" Jaehwan scoffed, palm to his chest, nose upturned. "If I were in hiding you'd never see me again. No one would."

"Right, because you're the epitome of stealthy." Sanghyuk played at rolling his eyes, shoved Jaehwan's legs out of his lap.

"I _am_! It's my job!"

"Your job is part-time thief, full-time hoe."

It landed a little harder, Jaehwan supposed, than Sanghyuk probably intended. One insult into another, all the time, was too much for him to take. He rolled off the couch with a loud thump, sighed heavily as he got to his feet. "I really do need to go for a walk, though. I don't remember the last time I even stood upright, let alone left the house."

"Are your shoulders okay? Your neck wound? Everything?"

"I feel fine, Sanghyuk," and Jaehwan did his best to keep it casual, but his best wasn't good enough, an intended low grumble coming out as a cracked sort-of whine. "Don't worry so much, you old woman."

Sanghyuk gave him a look as if to say _Me? Worried?_ but that little line didn't ease from his brow. "You want me to come with you?"

"Nah." Jaehwan was already shrugging his hoodie, picked up from a pile of laundry to be done on the edge of the kitchen, up his shoulders. "I'm gonna take the Mag with me, just in case of trouble."

"Good plan, hyung." Sanghyuk flashed his bright smile, and Jaehwan flashed one back, throwing a heart Sanghyuk's direction, as if to tell him they were all good. "Be careful, please."

Jaehwan toed into his sneakers in the doorway, pulled his pistol from the backpack hanging on the hook by the door. "I will. Tell Hongbin I'm gonna be out late." He was halfway out the door when his instincts told him that it would be the last time he did so.

Thief's intuition wasn't right often enough for him to shed too much concern, but he did anyway, like a fool.

Once out in the open twilight of the city, airborne sludge and the scent of desperation filling his lungs once again, Jaehwan felt better. Worse, of course, because he didn't have any intention of actually going on a walk so much as seeking out Hakyeon, and because dishonesty weighed heavy on his heart like an impending asthma attack that worsened when he took a brisk pace down the street. But better. Why had he felt so sorry for himself in the first place, anyway? Everyone needed a little help sometimes.

In fact! He was going to help out someone here soon. He reached around the small of his back, felt the handle of his Magnum tucked into the waistband of his sweats, and took comfort in the weight of it. He stopped off at the corner store Hongbin often frequented, begging coffee and a few packs of smokes, and bought himself a pineapple-flavoured slush that actually tasted more like frozen water and machine than any type of citrus he'd ever indulged in.

On his way out, he smacked right into someone, and the pineapple slush went flying onto the filthy linoleum of the store's floor. Good, he supposed, looking at it with heartbreak previously unbeknownst him, he didn't want it anyway.

When at long last he was finished mourning what could have been, Jaehwan lifted his head, and his eyes met Hakyeon's. He stumbled back a step, caught off-guard -- how the hell did this... this _no one_ keep getting past his defenses? If he were a little more himself right now he'd probably resent it -- but he found his footing quickly, tucked his hands into the pockets of his hoodie.

"Hello again," Hakyeon chirped, offering a sincere smile. "Sorry about your drink. How are you feeling?"

"I'm feeling fine," Jaehwan murmured, "but I really wanted that drink. Haven't had anything in...a little while."

"Thirsty?" Hakyeon arched one flawless eyebrow, smirking slow and lazy, and Jaehwan, inexplicably, knew his every shortcoming was on display with just a word. "I'll get you another one. What flavour was it?"

Jaehwan shirked away from Hakyeon's touch when he reached out to take Jaehwan's hand in an apology, from the sparkle in his eyes that read _sympathy_ ; it was too close to intimacy and Hakyeon was, for all intents and purposes, a stranger. "It doesn't matter. I have to, uh, go somewhere. Do you want to come with me on a little walk?"

Hakyeon's summer-day smile turned into something softer, springier, and he nodded, leaving Jaehwan breathless at how much enthusiasm could be caught up in such a simple gesture.

They left the convenience store together, Jaehwan fishing in the inside pocket of his sweatshirt until he found a loose, crumpled cigarette. His talent wasn't stealing for nothing -- this, evidently, was Hongbin's jacket. "Do you have a light?" he asked, only to receive a noise of disdain in response. "Fine, suit yourself." He went back to digging, but when he looked up, having found nothing, there was a flame in front of his face that was not of his own making.

Hakyeon did not seem to have intended on surprising Jaehwan, and held the lighter closer as if to urge him to get on with it. "My partner smokes."

"Your partner?" Jaehwan held the end of his cigarette to the flame, inhaled deeply. The first hit was always the best; he wondered, in this moment, why he didn't smoke more often. "That sounds official. Marriage partner? Cop partner? Business partner?" He filled the contemplative silence with empty words, until they all flowed together and he didn't have to follow too closely anymore.

"More like partner in crime." Hakyeon lifted a shoulder, drew his own jacket around himself with a shiver. "It doesn't matter. I carry lighters with me everywhere since he's always forgetting his."

"Then why were you giving me shit?"

"Because it's fun to see the look on your face." For the second time, Jaehwan was knocked off-balance, now at the level of honesty Hakyeon managed to achieve in a matter of minutes. "Where are we going? You said you had something to do."

"Yeah, I do, just..." And Jaehwan ducked into this side-street; he knew it well enough to know that they wouldn't be bothered. "Stay here a minute." He checked the various doors, just in case, paranoia having never served him less than well. No sound, everything still as abandoned as he remembered. He went back to Hakyeon's side, the pair of them standing in the shadow of the buildings around him. "So I have to ask you something."

"Go ahead." Hakyeon's smile seemed to illuminate even here, the dankest of dark alleyways.

"So, you've been standing down the street from my apartment building for...what, three days?"

"Five days."

"And you haven't come up and-- five days?"

"Yes. It's been five days since I met you in that bar." His eyes held the secrets of the universe, and Jaehwan wanted to shake Hakyeon until they all fell out. "How're your shoulders, by the way? Since I've been rude and haven't asked how you're doing."

He couldn't even fathom that Hakyeon wasn't denying essentially stalking him outside his apartment, let alone the fact that he seemed to be doing it out of a concern for Jaehwan's well-being. Hakyeon himself was, in essence, completely unfathomable. Maybe that's why he was so good at snatching the breath right out of Jaehwan's lungs, good at making it look effortless when no one had been able to do so before.

A dream drifted back to Jaehwan, in that moment, of a face, of calm, of a peace he hadn't known since long before the petty crime days. He felt a hot twinge in the tips of his fingers; his cigarette, mostly unsmoked as a result of distraction, had burned down to the filter and singed his skin. He dropped the blackened butt into the puddle beside them, watched the little plume of smoke rise up as the paper and fiberglass hit the water.

"I'm fine," he answered at last, but again, dishonesty had a bitter twang to it that he couldn't possibly untaste, even now, with someone he barely even knew, let alone liked.

"Do you want me to stop waiting on the street for you?"

Jaehwan wanted a lot of things -- another cigarette, not to have to go on a job the next day, maybe world peace if he got far enough down the list. He supposed he _should_ want Hakyeon to stop waiting for him.

"No," he answered, his mouth betraying him before he had the chance to stop it.

Hakyeon smiled again. "Then I won't."

"Maybe wait a little further down?" He wouldn't say it, but it would be nice if he could see Hakyeon from time to time, and that wouldn't happen if he kept staying in view of Hongbin's surveillance cams.

Nodding, Hakyeon went to take his leave. "Next time I'll get you a drink."

"No, don't," Jaehwan insisted, wrinkling his nose in protest, "you look like you drink shit with ginseng in it."

"Who can even drink shit?" Hakyeon shrugged and laughed and disappeared around a corner, leaving Jaehwan, who could only watch him go, his legs too stubborn, too tired from going to no walking to a bunch of walking, to follow him, no matter how much instinct told him he should. A thief’s intuition, after all, was rarely correct.

\---

That very night, Jaehwan ventured out for some work, dressed in black and looking his best, his slimmest, his most incredible. All the better to steal someone's most valued possessions with. Hongbin had been kind enough to give him a contact -- an older woman, divorced, having stolen everything and anything she could get her hands on in the settlement. He'd thanked Hongbin profusely for his mercy in giving him this assignment; Jaehwan didn't really know that he was quite ready, either physically or emotionally, to get beat the fuck up by some ugly with a moustache with hands bigger than Jaehwan's face.

Strangely, though he knew he was being followed as he departed into the night, he didn't mind it all that much. Most of the self-pity had drained from him over the past couple days, aided by little daytime trysts with Hakyeon. Now he was back to being an at least somewhat functional human being. Though he'd never admit it, he'd pressured himself out here tonight, the threat of medical bills and an underground doctor with paid thugs more than willing to undo the work the doctor himself had done hanging heavy over his head.

He thought back to Hakyeon, to spending time with him today, as he made his way to his mark's apartment midtown. His cheeks flushed faint red as Hakyeon's voice, smooth and light like liquor, like sunshine, rushed back to his ears. "Are you doing anything tonight?" he had asked, nudging Jaehwan lightly in the side. He hadn't even thought to flinch away, so easy was the contact.

"I'm, um, working," Jaehwan had replied, lamely at that, cheek caught between his teeth, he himself unable to fully reject Hakyeon. Even the idea left him queasy, though he couldn't fully rectify the source with himself.

Hakyeon, though, had just smiled in that way of his, like he knew all the stars and their respective secrets as easily as someone else knew the back of their hand. "That's fine. Some other time, maybe."

Even the prospect put a little skip in Jaehwan's step. He felt every bit the idiot for it, but didn't correct himself.

The apartment building snuck up on him, so lost in the fantasy had he become. He stumbled into the building just the same, trying his best to feel as light on his feet as he knew he could be. His cover story that he was just some high-price hooker, which was pretty smart on his part -- it wasn't the usual; more often than not it was an 'organic' meeting, took weeks of Hongbin tracking the mark's movements to figure out their patterns, which bars they liked, what stores they shopped at when they did shop, how often they ordered takeout. This was way less costly, way less stressful for everyone involved.

Again, a shadow of gratitude crept up his spine. He smiled to himself as he climbed the four flights of stairs, getting the adrenaline going.

She was apparently right at the door when he rang, flung it open, and he paused to admire the look about her. Most of it was probably plastics at its finest, but the grey at her temples couldn't be faked even if she tried. She bowed her head as she let him in, touched his shoulder as he stepped out of his shoes. "It's so nice to meet you," she told him, and God, her sincerity was enough to stab him right beside his heart -- not quite a killing blow, but enough to really hurt.

They stepped into the apartment, and it was well-kept -- she probably didn't have a lot to do during the day besides socialise -- but the nicest things were the ones there for the taking. "Do you want something to drink?" he asked her, and he nodded his agreement. She sauntered off to the kitchen, leaving him alone in the living room.

He traced a fingertip along the head of a crystalline elephant -- pretty, but probably worthless in the long run. It didn't have a single speck of dust along its body. He admired it, admired her for having it, if only for a moment.

A split-second left him wanting to take photos, but that wasn't professional, nor was it appropriate for the audience he wanted to show (namely Hakyeon).

When she came back to the living room, two glasses in hand, one considerably fuller than the other and with a lipstick print on the glass, she greeted him warmly. Her smile was huge, true, but the drink she offered him was the smaller, and that was telling in and of itself.

"Is something wrong?" He was overstepping a boundary, but he knew that when he batted his eyelashes it didn't matter so much.

She visibly hesitated to answer him, but eventually answered him, lips around the rim of her drink, the messy red rimming her mouth catching the edge of a front tooth as she spoke. "You're the first person I've seen since I left my husband."

He reached out, dusted his fingertips along the column of her throat as she swallowed a mouthful of gin. "I promise I'll be whatever you want me to be," he told her solemnly.

She nodded, set her drink down on a table, careful to use the coaster set out. "Do you want to..."

Jaehwan closed the gap between them, cupped her cheeks in his palms, and drew her into the slowest, sweetest kiss he could muster. Every alarm bell in him told him he needed to stop, that this was too much, too intimate, too close.

Hakyeon flashed through his mind, the summer sunshine of his smile parting the haze that was his wariness, and he melted into the kiss as she melted into him.

Several hours later, when she was fast asleep, having talked and drank more than fucked her way to a restful night, he was back in her living room. Most of the things in here weren't worth his time -- he wanted to take the crystalline elephant, but that was more for sentimental reasons, something to remember this awfully kind lady by -- and if he was being truthful with himself, by any stretch of the imagination, he didn't want to cause her any distress. She'd been so gentle with him, just as much as he'd been with her, possibly sensing his initial reluctance to do anything with her.

He would remember her forever, just for that, but the elephant wouldn't hurt. It was a paperweight, and she had way nicer things. But when he picked it up, went to slip it into his pocket for safe keeping, he was washed over by a wave of acrid regret, his conscience telling him no.

When he went back to the bedroom, he looked over her sleeping form, watched the slow, even rise and fall of her chest as she snoozed away. He couldn't leave with nothing besides the money in his pocket, which she'd been thoughtful enough to leave on the dresser. The low light of the bedroom, just a couple lamps on either bedside table, cast the room in soft yellow, and he used that as his guide, fingered anything shiny he could find.

He came up with a couple necklaces, a small handful of rings, and a bracelet containing more stones than he'd ever seen on a chain so short. All of them went into his pocket, but he didn't feel great about it.

That look of warning in Hakyeon's eyes flashed before his own, without his consent, the look he earned when Hakyeon knew, just _knew_ that Jaehwan was about to make a joke he shouldn't.

He left the apartment anyway, fighting nausea on the four-story descent.

\---

He didn't want to admit it, but Jaehwan became quickly accustomed to the ritual of leaving the apartment during the day, meeting up with Hakyeon. It was almost like having a shadow, except he didn't particularly fear it, not in the way he had the few times he had felt himself being followed. They spent time along the strip of street that lined Jaehwan's apartment building.

He was working up the courage to ask Hakyeon, several days after their initial meeting on the streetcorner, why they didn't go to someplace Hakyeon himself was familiar with, but it hadn't quite arrived. He swallowed anxiety as easily as he swallowed the drinks Hakyeon seemed to ply him with. He didn't much like sugar, Hakyeon, but Jaehwan consumed enough for both of them, sucking down slushies as the weather grew warmer by the hour, by the day.

"Why are you always here?" he asked Hakyeon after about a week of this. "I'm not mad about it, I just...I figure you're probably bored of doing the same thing every day."

He'd always been great at reading people, but Hakyeon, even after spending several hours for the past eight days together, was such a mystery that it drove Jaehwan positively mad. He wanted, again, to take Hakyeon, shake him until the secrets fell out. His instincts told him there was probably an easier way to do that, but...God, even at his last job he couldn't do the usual and flirt his way into good standing with his mark. Everything was still too fresh, every eye made in his direction reminiscent of the point of a knife pressed into his throat.

The only people around whom he truly felt comfortable, felt a semblance of the Before self, were Hongbin, Sanghyuk, and, incredibly enough, Hakyeon.

Hakyeon, drinking tea like it wasn't getting to be blazing hot outside, merely lifted a shoulder. "I like you," he answered easily, and went on talking about his partner -- Taekwoon, Jaehwan had learned over the passage of the past handful of days -- and some stupid thing he'd done while they'd been out drinking. Hakyeon didn't drink, he just babysat. It made for interesting conversation.

"Wait, no," and Jaehwan interrupted, fully aware how much he'd earned the look that Hakyeon gave him, the one that told him in no uncertain terms how absolutely rude he was. "Hold on, you _like_ me?"

"Yeah, what?" Hakyeon turned a corner, approaching where there stood the rotting remains of what might have, at some point, been termed a park. "That's a dumb question, Jaehwan, you know that?"

"Hyung," and here Jaehwan whined in spite of himself, "I don't get it."

"What's there to get?" The gate was hanging open, half-rusted, and it creaked when Hakyeon so much as walked by, stirred by the breeze. "I said what I said. There's no additional thinking required. Are you going to give yourself a headache over it?"

 _Probably,_ Jaehwan's mind supplied unhelpfully. "No," his mouth lied, and he felt guilt over it immediately. "I don't know. I don't think I'm very likeable. I don't do much other than hang out with you, so I guess I don't understand why you think I'm so interesting?"

There was a sudden shift in the mood, though Jaehwan couldn't really tell if he felt it in himself, or in Hakyeon; that ineffability of Hakyeon's made judging the conversation, in all its subtle graces, nearly impossible. "I just do," Hakyeon insisted, plunking down in a swing only to have it collapse beneath his weight, the rubber of the seat hanging from one broken chain.

Hakyeon looked so small, sitting there, plunked down in the dirt. His tea had, somehow, survived the Great Swing Collapse, and Hakyeon raised it over his head like a testament to his own cleverness.

Jaehwan helped him to his feet. "Let's go sit on the merry-go-round," he suggested gently, knowing that, at the very least, if a merry-go-round went belly-up, they probably wouldn't end up flat on their ass because of it.

"Good plan." Hakyeon brushed old dirt from the seat of his pants (Jaehwan did his best not to look, except his best wasn't nearly good enough), crossed the space to the carousel, and took a seat on the lip of it. The contraption remained sturdy as Jaehwan had predicted, and he sat in the space between the bars, just beside Hakyeon, their knees brushing ever so subtly. "It's like..." It took Jaehwan a moment to key into the fact that they were continuing the same conversation. "It's like, I don't see a lot of people. Like you say you do, I mostly just stay at home, and don't do much besides hanging out with you."

Jaehwan shook his head in disagreement, couldn't think of Hakyeon as a homebody, for whatever reason.

"But the thing is, you...have so much colour to you, that I really don't know how I didn't realise that the world, this city? It's so black and white, Jaehwan. I didn't see that before I met you."

"Me either," Jaehwan murmured, head lolling against the bar, straw of his drink caught between his lips. It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the whole truth -- Hakyeon himself hadn't been the reason he could suddenly see colour where there'd been none before, but rather the life-saving he'd done, and the appreciation that naturally came with a near-death experience.

"You put colour where there wasn't any before."

Jaehwan didn't really know how to process it, mostly because it was the most romantic thing he'd heard in a long time. Maybe ever. He wasn't sure. Certainly there were marks who tried to win his heart, but everything they ever told him felt staged, forced inbetween touches that Jaehwan didn’t want, just put himself through with the bottom line in mind. This...was true. He knew it deep within the pit of himself.

He leaned closer to Hakyeon, who fit an arm around his shoulders. "I'm really glad I met you, hyung," Jaehwan said, a shade above a whisper, afraid of disturbing the peace he found settled into Hakyeon's hold.

Just then, Jaehwan's phone buzzed; he turned away a little to check it. Hongbin. Marked urgent. Jaehwan rolled his eyes so hard he swore he felt his legs go a little weak as a result. Were they out of pudding again? He couldn't remember the last time he'd received an urgent message from either of his roommates, probably because they never sent any unless the matter was urgent in the eyes of irony.

_COME HOME RIGHT NOW._

Weird. Did someone die? Was he in trouble?

"Hey, there's something going on at home," Jaehwan told Hakyeon, albeit a little reluctantly. He was still working up his courage, still hand-wringing uselessly until his brain decided that he couldn't hold onto the important questions anymore. "I'll see you tomorrow?" Before he even registered that he'd moved, Jaehwan has popped up from his spot on the carousel.

"You don't want me to walk you home?" Hakyeon questioned with a slight tip of his head.

"No, I... It's fine. I'll be fine." Jaehwan tried to smile even though the nerves were rising up in him. He'd thought that, after the last time, he'd banished them for good, but of course, every effort to be a functional human was thwarted by his own high-alert brain.

"Okay." Hakyeon smiled in that serene way of his, and Jaehwan, ignoring his better judgment, turned to face him, stooped, pressed a kiss to the spot where Hakyeon's fringe met his forehead.

"See you tomorrow," he called out as he jogged away, back around the corner and in the direction of the apartment.

When he made it back inside, Sanghyuk was up and pacing. Well and truly nervous, Jaehwan determined, watching the scene before him. He didn't even look up when Jaehwan made the effort of slamming the door behind himself, kicking off his shoes in such a rush that they clunked against the wall.

"Hey," Sanghyuk intoned, lifting his head from the rut he seemed intent upon wearing into the floorboards. "Hongbin wants to see you. Like...right now."

Jaehwan made a noise of acknowledgement, but he wasn't in any particular hurry to find out what the problem was. He dicked around in the living room just for the sake of, doing a little of his signature sweet dougie-ing, eventually grabbing Sanghyuk and trying to get him to join in.

Sanghyuk, though, wasn't having any of it, just put his hands on Jaehwan's elbows and stilled him mid-movement. "Hyung. You really need to go talk to him. It's important." A pause, stilted, passed between them. "It's about your friend."

Jaehwan felt his blood start to boil. He shouldn't have assumed that Hongbin would respect his privacy, and dig up everything about Hakyeon when he got the chance. It was just how he operated. Exasperated, Jaehwan went flat, both physically and emotionally, arms dangling uselessly at his sides. "Fine," he agreed, derision clear in his tone.

He entered Hongbin's office, and was greeted with the younger standing to meet him. "Close the door," Hongbin all but commanded. "Things are probably going to get ugly really quickly."

"What are you fucking _talking_ about, Bin?" Jaehwan wanted to know, trying to keep it casual even though he was nearly shaking with rage at this unwarranted invasion of privacy. He leaned against the office wall, head rolling to one side. Already he missed the sunshine, and the park, and Hakyeon; his patience for this dramatic bullshit was wearing thin pretty quick. A rich sentiment, coming from him.

"Your friend, the one that I caught on the CCTV?" Hongbin took a step closer, hands outstretched, fingers balling and unballing in fists. Jaehwan knew this Hongbin, but not well; he wanted to get away, wanted to punch, wanted to disappear all in one swoop. Being the bearer of bad news suited Hongbin; hurting people he had truly grown to love did not. "I did some searches on him. Best I could, considering you don't even know his last name and you're running around with him all the time."

"Cha." Jaehwan sniffled, lifted his head. "His family name is Cha."

"No shit, Sherlock." Hongbin rolled his neck. "Anyway, you know what I found out about him? He's a fucking cop, Jaehwan. You're dating a cop."

The accusation was not lost on Jaehwan. He numbed out so fast that it nearly caused him to keel over.

"He what?" Jaehwan no longer recognised his own voice.

"Yeah, he's actually a detective. Lucky him, right? Promotion just happened in the last year. As far as I can tell, the only case he's ever been assigned is yours." Hongbin was spitting mad, then, turning a full three-sixty. Jaehwan knew it was to keep what little violence Hongbin had waiting deep inside him at bay, and that he probably needed the throttling, that it was long overdue for him fucking around with a cop.

He remembered, suddenly, the feel of Hakyeon's forehead beneath his lips, and his mouth burned a betrayal so deep he almost forgot to process it.

"Is that why he's been spending so much time with me?" Jaehwan wondered aloud, body limp against the wall, a noodle cooked under the pressure. "He just...wants to send me to jail?"

"You _cannot_ go to jail." Hongbin's face turned to something grim, all the anger leaving him in a visible rush only to be replaced with worry. "Sanghyuk and I... we won't let that happen."

"You won't?" Jaehwan was right there, of course, to pick up the misplaced rage. "That's awful funny, because you weren't even there when I almost fucking died. You don't go to Seokjin's with me, when I could be arrested at any fucking time -- "

"You've told us you don't want us knowing where Seokjin is -- "

" -- and you've never been on a job with me, ever, for any reason. So honestly, Bin? Now is kind of a garbage time to start caring about me getting arrested. This is just about the money, isn't it?"

"No," Hongbin insisted, growing quiet, and Jaehwan knows, just fucking _knows_ that he's going too far, but he's on a runaway track, reeling with the revelation, unable to do much else besides yell.

"This is just about me working for the both of you, keeping you comfortable, keeping it to where you don't even have to _work_ if you don't want. And...and..." A sob wracks through his chest, threatens to burst through his ribcage with the violent force of it. He could swear he'd been shot; when he puts his hand to his chest in an attempt to slow his own breathing, he's genuinely surprised not to find blood flowing from a wound he'd invented in his own mind.

"Are you going to tell him you know?" Hongbin and Jaehwan had been together for years, since before they picked up a stray Sanghyuk along the way, and that's the only reason Hongbin didn't bother trying to take this personally.

"No." Jaehwan slowly, painfully slid to the floor, knees to his chin, forehead resting against them.

"Then what, do you want Sanghyuk to kill him?"

Jaehwan lifted his head, suddenly heavy with all the fury and vexation churning violently inside him. "Is that what he's out there worried about? Killing a cop? Is that the kind of shit you guys talk about when I'm not here?"

"Not always," came the matter-of-fact reply, and Hongbin was melting pretty steadily. He sank into his office chair. "Only when you fuck up this badly."

"How was I supposed to know he was a cop?!"

"You should have known something. Who the hell likes you that much besides us anyway?"

It stung a lot more than it should have. Jaehwan heaved himself to his feet. "I'm going to bed." He regretted getting rid of those pain pills too early. "Wake me up when there's a job."

"You can't just ghost on him, hyung, he'll know something's up."

"I'm not ghosting. I'm figuring shit out." He flung open Hongbin's office door, stagy as he'd ever been, and closed it in much the same manner, grateful there was no glass to be broken as he heard the latch click closed behind him.

Sanghyuk looked up again, stepped a little closer, tentative, hands raised.

Jaehwan shook his head, shouldered past Sanghyuk, went in the direction of his cave once again. "Don't worry," he muttered, "you don't have to work if you don't want." He closed the door behind him, flopped down into bed, and stared into the blackness of his bedsheets blankly until he couldn't think anymore.

\---

A few days later, Hongbin had an assignment ready for Jaehwan.

Good, Jaehwan surmised, figuring that the tension of them waiting for him _again_ to pick himself back up and dust himself off had gone on long enough. He was bored of social media for the third time, and there was only so much he could do in the way of watching movies on television before something, anything, reminded him of Hakyeon, of the betrayal he didn’t even consider possible, and he hurt all over again. All in all, the process took three days. Just long enough to secure some more work.

Hongbin thrust a little envelope into Jaehwan’s hands. A request from a trusted source, he was told. "A friend of a friend." Hongbin smiled, just a little, and it was reassuring to see his friend so confident after seeing the effects of his own cruelty. They were okay. 

Jaehwan had faith that his evening would go well. He wasn't actually stealing anything; he was simply getting paid for some recon. The 'trusted source' had even been kind enough to pay half in advance, expenses for the gig, and send along circle lenses that functioned as cameras, in case Jaehwan, feeling every bit the fallible human being these days, managed to miss something.

"I'm not going to have to fuck anyone, am I?" he asked as he was getting himself ready, strapping his calves with a hidden pair of knives just in case of some kind of emergency. His shirt was just tight enough that it showed off the swell of his chest but nothing underneath. He still simmered with the knowledge of the warmth of Hakyeon’s skin under his lips, with the now-distant memory of strong arms under his shoulders, with the even further memories of a stranger’s seed leaking from him, leaving him filthy.

"Not that I know of," replied Hongbin airily, watching as if there were nothing else he'd rather be doing, face alight with interest he usually reserved for a case, or games, or Sanghyuk. It was assumed, on Jaehwan’s part anyway, that he felt the discomfort running rife throughout Jaehwan, and chose not to comment on it. A true best friend, Jaehwan supposed.

"What are you going to be doing tonight, then?"

“Sanghyuk,” Hongbin replied without missing a beat.

Jaehwan made a noise, pretending to be scandalised, then shot Hongbin a sly look. "Are you two finally dating?" He smirked around the words, slipping on his favourite black turtleneck and taking a step to the right to admire his own shape in these clothes.

"I don't know, hyung, are you dating the cop?" 

They hadn’t talked about it. Jaehwan had known they would, eventually, but he was trying to have one good night before the fact.

Immediately Jaehwan's unbridled smugness became sour and irritated; he picked imaginary lint from his sleeve, refused to look Hongbin in the eye. "I'm not dating anyone. I don't have time when I'm taking care of you two kids." He turned around, made sure that the outline of his knives didn't peek through the jeans he had shimmied into. "Is this okay? Does my gun make my ass look fat?"

Hongbin snorted, drew one leg up onto the bed where he sat, tucked his knee under his chin, making himself look almost small. "Your ass is naturally fat."

"That's true," Jaehwan agreed with an overdramatic sigh. "It's a blessing and a curse. So! What are you and Sanghyuk doing if it isn't a date?"

"Chasing leads on a job." There was an unspoken thing, there, between the short syllables in Hongbin's conversation, but Jaehwan wasn't sure he was ready to prod at it just yet. "Also we _are_ probably going to have sex, since your naturally big nose is about to get you into trouble anyway."

"Probably?"

"Probably. Why does that sound unbelievable?"

"Because to hear him tell it you've never had sex in the first place, even though I definitely saw what I saw that one time." Jaehwan stepped up close to the mirror, peering into his own eyes, careful not to accidentally blink his new lenses out of place. His eyes were milky blue, something out of a horror story. He kind of dug them a little bit. "Do I look like a robot?"

"A little." Hongbin flopped back onto Jaehwan's bed. "Don't listen to Sanghyuk. Listen to me. I've never been anything but honest with you."

A grimace crossed Jaehwan's face, but he caught that in his reflection and corrected it quickly, putting on his award-winning smile. Practice in case he got caught, he supposed. "I wish, in this moment, that you would never do that again, if this is the type of thing you're gonna continue to be honest about."

"You don't get to ask a question and then refuse to listen to the answer, hyung," Hongbin pointed out as he rolled out of bed. "I'm gonna leave you to the rest of your weird primping and maybe do some of my own."

"Please, you own a total of seven shirts, all of which are _fucking ugly_!" Jaehwan raised his voice to a near shriek, chucked a shoe by his bedside a the doorframe, as Hongbin retreated out his bedroom door, middle finger flashing over his shoulder on his retreat. He was painfully aware that this extra dash of loudness would cost him a little bit of hell from the downstairs neighbours, but fuck it, he was more than happy to suffer them if it meant two more minutes of being himself before going to work and intentionally erasing any and all trace of his own identity.

This wasn't even that kind of job. The same worries remained.

When he was finally looking well enough to go out, when his body no longer protested so loudly, he left his bedroom. Neither Hongbin nor Sanghyuk were anywhere to be found. Jaehwan considered himself blessed, doesn't know that he could handle another incident of walking in on them all over each other, like he had that one time. Even the thought was enough to set cold shivers up and down his spine. Gross.

He puttered around the kitchen a little bit, made himself a snack, ate it sitting on the countertop. The apartment was, for once, still and silent. He wasn't sure whether or not he liked it, but it helped him find a certain center that wasn't available to him the past few days.

Eventually his thoughts drifted to Hakyeon. It was time to go to work. Anything was better than that idea, than throwing himself off for an entire job, no matter how small the job actually was.

"I'll be back," he called out to no one as he slipped into a pair of all-black hiking boots. There was, in him, a slight anxiety that he might run into Hakyeon while on the way to his job. He shoved that to the center of his brain, nestled deep, and locked the door behind him.

He ran, as he always had, though he got the sense that instead of running toward the site he'd been instructed to attend, he was running away from home. Again, that nerve in him pinched, the one that told him he'd never see home after tonight. He almost wanted to turn back, but work was work, and they needed the other half of that money in order to make all the bills, get themselves back up to comfortability instead of plain survival.

The place was halfway across town. Jaehwan found himself grateful for his own compulsion to be early to a job, because dusk came sooner than he anticipated, spurred on by heavy clouds hanging low, brushing the tops of the skyscrapers he usually craned his neck to observe. In the back of his mind was that nagging feeling that he was being followed, but he pushed that away just as he had the mere notion of Hakyeon.

Of course he was being followed. He was with a cop. He was probably under investigation right now. Let Hakyeon follow him, then, he thought, spitting heartily on the cracked concrete. There was no show tonight, nothing to see, and once Hakyeon figured that out, he would probably lose interest, lay off for a little while.

A small part of him wanted to see Hakyeon again, told him he wouldn't have the chance if he didn't, but he ignored it, pushed on, turned a corner so swiftly that it amazed him he didn't topple to the ground.

Eventually, he made it to the neighbourhood he'd been told to go to. The place was nicer than he remembered it from when he had learned the city on foot, schools with names on the front instead of chemical burns and people who looked like they showered more than once a week lining the sidewalks. There was even a restaurant or two, all gleaming and polished, beautiful; he wanted to stop inside, breathe a building that wasn't infested with smoke, taste something good for a change instead of machine and the infinite sadness of living closer to the city's innards.

He thought then of pineapple slushes and, of course, Hakyeon, and suddenly his tongue was layered in acridity. He wrinkled his nose. He moved on. He didn't have time to waste wishing he could be good enough to bring Hakyeon somewhere like this when Hakyeon was no less than five hundred feet behind him at all times.

Past the lovely people, church-going types in fancy clothes, holding the hands of children as they crossed an unbusy street, Jaehwan found what he was looking for: a stairwell, wrought-iron fence surrounding, a nondescript black door marked with woodchips in the seemingly fresh paint. Jaehwan cross-referenced the gold numbers on the doorframe with the combination he'd memorised earlier that day. He skipped down the steps, hand shoved deep in the pocket of his oversized sweatshirt, and found his lockpicking tools.

Fortunately for him, he'd been doing this long enough that he didn't have to stoop to slip the tumblers inside the lock out of place, just put the thin reed of silver in and gave it a little bit of a jiggle. The door came right open.

Almost too easy, he thought as he stepped inside, ignorant of the fact that he was smirking all the while.

The place was a basement, though, all concrete walls and floor. There was hardly a light to be seen, save the few high windows that let in thin shafts of sun that did more to hide than illuminate. Why was he mapping this place for pay? It was practically a dumping ground, a place to hide bodies if need be.

Funny how that thought occurred to him just as someone wrapped arms around his throat from behind.

He gasped, immediately grappling to get a hold on the arm around his neck, pry it from his body. His skin prickled with nerve set afire. His nails couldn't find skin. He craned his neck and bit down.

"You fucked with the wrong one," says a deep, deep voice, close to his ear, so close he could feel hot breath and gagged at the sensation.

Jaehwan reached for his gun, still tucked into his waistband, only to have it knocked away from him. It was like watching hope skitter across the floor instead of his firearm, his only way out.

He didn't want to panic. Nothing would come of that. But the less oxygen got to his brain the more the instinct kicked in, and he couldn't do much to stop the crimson humming in his veins, imploring him to escape.

The arm to his throat tightened, starting to crush his windpipe. He tried to duck out of the hold, only to be held tighter. He swung his head back, trying to at least break a nose in here somewhere, but the man holding him, firm and imposing just by the feel of him, spun with Jaehwan under his arm. They nearly tumbled. Jaehwan kept them upright even as he choked.

In a swift movement, he kicked his assailant's ankles out from under him, blind panic acting in him when thinking could not. Both went crashing to the floor, and this guy was quick, tried to wrestle control, but Jaehwan was quicker. With a swivel of his hips he pinned the attacked to the concrete floor, breathing heavy, sweat beading on his forehead just from this bit of effort.

"What the fuck," he demanded, one hand pinning the guy's wrists over his head, the other wrapped around his throat and pressing down. He didn't feel like waiting for an answer. He pressed his thumb in low, feeling just how fucking fragile the human throat is.

"I was told to bring you in," gasped out the attacker. Jaehwan took a long look at him, at the softness in his eyes. "Lots of money. I got a debt." He tried to spit in Jaehwan's face, but only managed to spit on himself.

If the situation weren't what it was, Jaehwan might almost feel sorry for him.

"Sounds like a you problem." He pressed the knife in harder, just now starting to break skin. He caught himself wondering if it would be suspicious to leave this place covered in someone else's blood. Still, Jaehwan's gun was too far away for him to reach for it, plug this guy, end everything once and for all. He recalled the knife on his calf, pulled one out with a soft metallic _shing_ , and put it to the guy's throat. "You fucked with the wrong one."

"Funny," and the guy croaked out a laugh. "You can go ahead and kill me. You earned it."

"No," Jaehwan said carefully, peering into those soft eyes, looking for something he probably wouldn't find. "You're going to tell me what's going on here."

"Are you stupid?" The guy really laughed, then, a cracked sound that shook Jaehwan to his core. "It was a setup. By the mob. And I'm the asshole they hired to take you out."

"Who are you, then?" Jaehwan's voice had gone soft, then, thoughtful, the portrait of mercy when there was none.

"Does it matter? Fucking kill me and get it over with."

"No."

"They won't let me go back without you. I'm dead either way."

"Then tell me your name, so I can mock them with it later."

The guy glanced over Jaehwan's shoulder, rolled his eyes, spit again, this time getting it on the floor at least. Jaehwan clenched a fist around Mob Man's throat so hard tears pricked at the corners of the other's eyes. Jaehwan, too, glanced over his own shoulder, but saw nothing -- stupid, stupid, _stupid_ , he cursed as he was pushed away, into the concrete, back and shoulderblades cracking and resettling in one smooth noise. He hadn't healed from the last injury, not entirely, that much was evident by the nauseating wave that rolled over him as he tried to sit up. Once again, he was well and truly fucked.

He reached out blindly, stabbed, trying to get some kind of leverage -- anything was better than nothing -- and caught Mob Man in the shoulder. His triumph was met with a noise akin to a roar, primal and made of fear. Blood splattered down his arm, down Jaehwan's wrist, onto Jaehwan's face, and he flinched away. He was no killer, but he'd be damned if his instinct would be right this time.

They rolled again, Jaehwan perched on the other's thighs, the knife still planted deep in his assailant's skin. He dug in a little harder, twisted, earning a scream of pure, unadulterated pain, earning more blood. Then he pulled the knife out, slow, the serrated edge tearing even more skin on exit.

"Ready to play along?" he asked, a little stilted, chest heaving. At least, he thought, he'd get a workout of this.

In a flurry of movement, Jaehwan's attacker lurched forward, bashing his head against Jaehwan's, their noses colliding in a smash that left them both worse for wear. Jaehwan had only had his nose broken once before but he recognised the sickening crunch of sinew and bone and cartilage, the warm stream that ran down his face, over his lips. Without thinking he drew his tongue through the blood, tasted rust and salt and mortality. He wasted no time in pressing his knife to the unnamed aggressor's throat, grateful for their little rough and tumble, that he could see the pulse beating in the other's throat.

"I wanted to let you go," huffed Jaehwan, each breath an effort made through a sea of blood as it rolled down his face. "I figured the mob would just kill you if I didn't. I don't like all this stupid shit." He spat pure scarlet into the other's eyes. "Tell me your name."

The door to the basement flung open, and both Jaehwan and the hitman hired to kill him looked that way. Jaehwan didn't really need to see the face to know the frame, each curve something he'd traced with his eyes, longed to do with his hands.

"The fuck do you want, copper?" he asked, and then immediately regretted it, figuring he probably sounded something like an old-timey gangster in a film. "I'm a little busy here."

Hakyeon, in the doorway, brandished a police-issue .22, pointed at the tangle of limbs bleeding to death on the floor. "You didn't come out. I heard screaming. I thought it was you."

Jaehwan lifts his knife, gives the guy pinned beneath him another stab in the upper arm, near the site of the original wound. Just for dramatic flair. "I don't need your help."

The guy tried his best to wriggle out from beneath Jaehwan's weight, groaned with the effort. A cursory glance told Jaehwan that he would probably not last much longer as far as consciousness went, so he wasn't horribly troubled. "Go away," he practically snarled, dragging the blade of his knife through pliant skin, almost afraid of how much he was actually enjoying this.

Hakyeon was surprisingly calm as he closed the door behind him, stalking carefully across the floor to meet Jaehwan and -- "What's your name?" he asked of Mob Man, who grunted loudly in pain as Jaehwan took his knife back.

"Wonsik," groaned the man, and all that guilt Jaehwan so associated with violence came rushing back. "Kim Wonsik. Are _you_ gonna kill me, at least?"

For a long moment, Hakyeon and Jaehwan locked eyes, knew what kind of people they were, and knew what the answer to that question was. Hakyeon regarded Wonsik coolly, then shook his head. "No, I'm not much in that habit," he replied with a bit of affectation. "You're free to go, though. I have to take this guy in."

"You what?!" both Wonsik and Jaehwan shouted at the exact same moment. Jaehwan's head swam with the rumours he'd heard of prison. He scampered to his feet, tucking his knife away. Only for a moment did he even so much as look down at Wonsik, at the bloodied mess he'd made of the hitman, and shook his head. "Get out of here. We're done."

"I'm not going out there to get killed," muttered Wonsik. He tried to get up, too, but the effort was too much.

There must have been a sadistic streak in Hakyeon the entire time, because he pressed the heel of his boot into Wonsik's shoulder wound. "If you don't get out of here," he told Wonsik, even as a person could even be, "I will keep doing this until your arm pops off, and I will let you bleed out on the floor, and I will still take this idiot here to the station as you're screaming for death."

Both Jaehwan and Wonsik visibly shuddered.

"Can you get up?" Jaehwan asked, ever the fake-friendly motherfucker. Wonsik nodded, rolled onto his side, pushed up with one arm, clumsy but successful. "Good. The nearest hospital is about two and a half miles from here. Go out of here, take a right, and follow that street to its end." He nodded again, number this time, bottom lip caught between his teeth so fiercely that his whole mouth stained with blood. "And the next time you decide to take a job for the fucking family, maybe do yourself a favour and ask yourself what we'll do to you if you try it again."

Hakyeon bobbed his head in agreement, Glock still raised, pointed square at Wonsik's chest. "Go. Now. Have a good life. Call your mother, I'm sure she'd love to hear from you."

They watched Wonsik limp slowly out the front door, nearly shoulder-to-shoulder, the almost-contact setting Jaehwan on edge. When he was gone, the door shut behind him, and Hakyeon and Jaehwan were left alone together in the darkness, Jaehwan turned to Hakyeon with the grimmest of smiles.

"So, am I under arrest, officer?" he asked, voice a bit of a rasp, adding to his poor attempt at flirtation.

Hakyeon rolled his eyes and, if Jaehwan didn't know better, he'd swear he saw a hint of a grin there. "You could be, yeah, if you really wanna go spend the rest of your life in prison."

"You saved my life once," Jaehwan pointed out, "and I think I owe you a debt. This would make you look awesome to all your cop buddies, wouldn't it? Office hero? Get you and your partner a promotion." The fuck was he saying? he wondered. He couldn't afford to get locked up. Sanghyuk and Hongbin couldn't afford it, not that he would want them to anyhow.

"I don't give a damn about looking good to them," Hakyeon responded flatly. "I was about to hand in my resignation. I got a better job lined up."

"Better than upholding the law?"

"Anything's better than having to eventually arrest you."

That level of honesty was too intimate, and Jaehwan wanted so badly to run, to pretend he hadn't heard it, hold out his bloodstained hands and just let Hakyeon take him away. It was easier than facing the truth. "What are you going to do to me, then?" he asked, resigned, cocking his head and ready to listen.

Hakyeon did grin then, and it was dark in this dank basement, but he was so bright that his smile caught the light. "I'm gonna hide you, if I can, until this mob thing blows over. And then you can get back to your life of crime."

Staggered, Jaehwan took a moment to consider. It was an offer. Everything was with Hakyeon, never a demand. He wondered what he'd done to deserve such gentle treatment. It made him feel stupid, standing there before this man he kind of liked, face coated in his own blood, in someone else's.

Standing at the precipice of an enormous decision, Jaehwan wanted to run to places his legs could never have carried him. So he did the next best thing, and gave in to impulse.

He surged forward, Hakyeon’s shirt in both his bloodied fists, and kissed Hakyeon full on the mouth, any and all fear of intimacy leaving his body entirely soon as his lips touched Hakyeon’s. Hakyeon, liking him despite the fact that he did nothing of any particular interest, kissed him back, lips soft and moving expertly, drawing a little whimper from Jaehwan.

"What if I don't want to go back?" he asked, gasping for air his lungs desperately needed.

Hakyeon smiled that all-knowing smile, and for a moment, Jaehwan loved him, loved everything he was and everything he could be. "I was kind of hoping you'd say that." He paused, shifting from foot to foot, at long last lowering his gun. "Do you have a friend that knows about computers? And maybe also a friend who doesn't mind getting a little dirty to keep you safe?"

Jaehwan nodded, beaming, feeling the blood drying around his mouth crack a little, a scab that hadn't quite healed but was on its way nonetheless. "Yeah, I might know a guy."

\---

He would never admit it aloud, but Jaehwan was happy to be home, for however long he could manage to be anyway. It was, of course, a little strange to bring Hakyeon, a known officer of the law, to his weird criminals' den. Sanghyuk, who had been draped over Hongbin's lap not a moment before, jumped off the couch, fell flat on his face in a frantic move to get some kind of weapon. He probably screamed something about how Hakyeon would never take him alive, too, but no one could hear that except maybe Hongbin, who was kind enough not to laugh.

"Hey, uh, we have a favour to ask," Jaehwan started, running his blood-encrusted fingers through his hair.

"You wanna tell us what happened first?" Hongbin shot back, tilting his head in that way he did when he didn't want to look aggressive. "You don't usually bring your cop friends over."

"Oh, you make friends with a lot of cops?" The way Hakyeon said it set Jaehwan's guts to simmering. Or maybe that was the suspicious look in his eye, the way his lips pursed when he wasn't happy. All the familiar mannerisms came back to Jaehwan now that no one's life was in danger.

"Just you," Hongbin answered, climbing from his spot on the couch. "Hey. I've seen you on my security cameras. I think we might have gone to school together or something."

"Am I that handsome?" Hakyeon questioned, eyes finding the ceiling as he thought of it.

Jaehwan sputtered uselessly, went to Sanghyuk's side, helped him up off the floor, slapped his back a couple times to stop the ceaseless coughing fit Sanghyuk had been having for a solid sixty seconds.

"Nah," Hongbin disagreed, "I just never forget a face."

"Can you two stop flirting, please?" Jaehwan requested as he held Sanghyuk by the shoulders. Sanghyuk regarded his elder with a little bit of fear, studied the disintegrating stream of blood and bits stuck to Jaehwan's face. "It's kind of disgusting."

"You okay, hyung?" Sanghyuk asked in a low voice, dipping a bit to meet Jaehwan's eyes, check for concussion or whatever the fuck people did in case someone hit their head really hard. "You look pretty fucked up."

"Thank you so much for noticing," Jaehwan responded with as much sarcasm as he could muster. "Do you two chucklefucks want to hear the favour or not?"

Hakyeon went to Jaehwan's side as Hongbin and Sanghyuk fell silent. "So, uh, I think you guys already know this," Hakyeon began, putting a hand to Jaehwan's elbow and trying to catch his eye, "but I'm kind of a cop. And I don't want to be a cop anymore. It's exhausting. I'm too nice for it."

"That's not true," Jaehwan mumbled, remembering the sight of Hakyeon pinning Wonsik down at the bloody shoulder with just a boot.

"I'm too nice for it and the hours are too long and I don't get to see people I like to see nearly often enough unless I'm literally following them for the job," clarified Hakyeon, and the heat of his gaze burned into the side of Jaehwan's face so sharply that he flinched away from it. "I don't want anyone else to take your idiot friend here to jail, so I need a couple things done to keep him safe."

"What're you gonna do with him?" Hongbin's natural scepticism seeps into his voice. "I mean, destroying a paper trail is good, but that doesn't really get rid of the physical evidence that is, I dunno, the person committing the crimes?"

Sanghyuk, apparently, shared these worries, judging by the way he looked between Hongbin, Hakyeon, and Jaehwan with equal amounts of apprehension.

Hakyeon, though, just shrugged. "I have a plan. Or, uh, we have a plan. Don't we, Jaehwanie?"

"First of all, don't call me that in front of them," and Jaehwan didn't have enough blood left in his face to blush, but he felt that discomfort all the same. "Second of all, yeah, we're...gonna run away."

"Run away?" Sanghyuk fired back, suddenly angry, a frown pulling at his entire face. "And go where? The family is all over this town."

"Yeah, uh, that's the thing, boys," sighed Jaehwan, fist tangled in his dirty hair. "I'm not trying to stay in this town where people actively want me dead. I kinda wanna wait until all this has blown over, if I can."

"You can't," insisted Hongbin, at long last joining the cluster of them in the center of the living room. Realisation visibly dawned on him, and he looked down, unable to meet anyone's eye. "You can't."

Sanghyuk shook his head. "You're gonna just leave us...?"

Jaehwan, in a way that was absolutely not patronising, ruffled Sanghyuk's hair. "You two can get by without me just fine. I know it."

"So what's the favour?" Hongbin was growing impatient, wrapped his arms around his chest. "Since you two wanted to ask us for one."

"Right, so," and Hakyeon took charge of the situation. It didn't surprise Jaehwan in the slightest; Hakyeon was, by all accounts, a natural-born leader. Jaehwan left them there to talk about the details. He needed to call the doctor and, for God's sake, wash all the fucking blood off his face.

\---

Later that night, after working out the specifics of their plan, Hakyeon took Jaehwan to the police station. It was one of those smaller offices, the ones that had a holding tank for a max three people and didn't get a lot of traffic. There was only one other person there when they walked in, presumably Hakyeon's partner. He was a cat of a grown man, all limbs, long dark hair slicked back to go with the dress code his uniform entailed. There was a gun on the desk.

"Hey," Hakyeon greeted casually. "I need you to do me a favour."

The man was in the middle of a mouthful of ramen; he quickly slurped it down and exhaled loudly, apparently not a fan of spice. "Yeah, what's up?"

"I need you to get out of here around 2am."

Hakyeon's partner gave him a dubious look. "Why?"

Jaehwan looked around nervously. This was the closest he'd been to the police since the program that fingerprinted children had rolled on into his school. He'd refused even then, suspicious of strangers who wanted to identify him; it had served him well through his years of criminal activity. He let Hakyeon and his partner talk, wandering to the back, where the holding cell was, content to peer in and be able to look away rather than being trapped inside.

"Jaehwanie," Hakyeon summoned him, very official, authoritative. Jaehwan followed where he was called, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the bottle of pills the doctor had handed him not a couple hours prior. "Come talk to Taekwoon-ah for me, would you?"

Jaehwan held his head high, despite the fear the man's -- Taekwoon's -- uniform and, generally, existence, inspired deep within the pit of Jaehwan's very being. "How can I help you?" He even used his charming voice, a force of nervous habit.

"My partner says you're the thief he's been trying to bring to justice for a year," Taekwoon started, perhaps a little stiff. It didn't escape Jaehwan's notice that Taekwoon didn't look him in the eyes; he was probably just as scared of Jaehwan as Jaehwan was of him. "Is that true?"

"I don't know about a year."

"Are you a thief?" Taekwoon prodded at his ramyeon with his chopsticks, a little frown playing at his mouth.

"I am."

"And he says that you're actually not a bad person." Here doubt crept into Taekwoon's tone. "That you're funny and have a good personality and actually opted out of killing a man that tried to kill you today. Are those things true?"

Jaehwan scoffed, playing at being offended, his hand flying to his chest to cover his heart, to somehow hide the quickening of it. "He didn't tell you how handsome he thinks I am?"

Hakyeon nudged Jaehwan with an elbow, shaking his head. "He can see."

" _He can see_ ," Jaehwan repeated back in a mockery of Hakyeon's own ridiculousness. "Fine. Yes, those things are true."

"He says that he doesn't think you should go away for trying to live your life."

"I don't think so, no," Jaehwan admitted, all the breath and bravado leaving his body at the same time. "I just...the kids, you know..."

 

"The kids?"

"The ones who're doing the, uh...the thing,” Hakyeon supplied helpfully, wavering in his somewhat imposing stance.

"Oh, right." Taekwoon set down his chopsticks and leaned back in his chair, hands folded over his stomach. "You know this is my best friend, right?"

Jaehwan swallowed, shook his head. "I didn't."

"This is my best friend, Cha Hakyeon, and I have literally killed a man for him." Something in Taekwoon's demeanour in that moment set Jaehwan to shivering. Death didn't scare him anymore, now that it wasn't looming directly over his head, but the thought of a murderer did. "I am not afraid to kill you for him if this is a mistake on his part."

Nodding dumbly, Jaehwan looked from Taekwoon to Hakyeon, who had softened without Jaehwan even noticing. "I'll take care of him as best as I can, then."

The shift in the air was tangible. Taekwoon reached out to shake Jaehwan's hand, and though he was doubtful about the contact, he did it anyway. A gentleman's agreement. "Get out of here," he told the pair of them sternly. "The last train is almost here and I don't want you two to be late to wherever you're going."

Hakyeon hooked his elbow around Jaehwan's. "Thanks, Taekwoon-ah. I'll be in contact as soon as I know it's safe."

"The train?" Jaehwan asked quietly, as he was pulled through the pressurised doors of the tiny police station. "How far are we going?"

"We're going to a farm out in the country," Hakyeon told him with complete confidence. "A distant relative left it to me or something. I figured if you wanted to leave your life behind, you were probably going to want to be as far from this nightmare hellscape of a city as you possibly could be."

Jaehwan, flabbergasted, found Hakyeon's hand and threaded their fingers together, forcibly not acknowledging the little gasp that made Hakyeon's entire frame tighten up.

"You're right," Jaehwan said amiably, turning to press a little kiss to Hakyeon's cheek, all the fear of intimacy dissolving with a touch of lips to face.

\---

When he woke the next morning, the porter was handing Jaehwan the day's newspaper.

 _LOCAL POLICE STATION MYSTERIOUSLY BURNED_ , read the headline. Jaehwan snickered under his breath, then remembered Hakyeon's fool partner and scanned the text, looking to see if anyone had been injured. No one was noted; Jaehwan breathed a sigh of relief at that. God knew he wouldn't be able to live with himself if someone had been hurt in his attempt to stay alive. He thought briefly of Wonsik, asking himself whether or not a shoulder injury was enough to kill someone before they could get to the hospital. He prayed, genuinely prayed, that the clumsy hitman who'd attempted to kill him had made it out of their encounter alive.

He kept reading, saw that there was a suspicion of arson, and laughed again. Sanghyuk would never be caught. This wasn't his first coverup, after all.

Not only that, the article went on to say, but certain police files -- open cases, specifically -- had been deleted from the police department's database. This whole thing stunk, concluded the article, but no one knew anything, nor could they prove there was anything to know.

The only officer on duty that night, Jung Taekwoon, was questioned, but he'd been called out of the station for the time being. Domestic disturbance, he claimed. Perhaps, Jaehwan considered, Taekwon wasn't such a fool after all.

Hakyeon, Jaehwan noticed when his sleeping brain finally became more active, was suspiciously absent from their cabin. He got to his feet, stretched his every limb -- a painful activity, he keenly aware that practically every piece of him was slowly blooming with bruises that would take way too long to heal -- and went to fling open the compartment door.

Standing right there, as beautiful as he'd been the night he'd first saved Jaehwan's life, was Hakyeon, a cup of coffee in his hand. He pushed his offering toward Jaehwan, who grinned, grabbed Hakyeon by the front of his shirt and pulled him into the little room.

After Jaehwan had consumed his coffee, they stayed there for hours, kissing endlessly, til Jaehwan couldn't feel his lips and he swore he needed some real hydration. They ended up close to the window, draped over one another's laps.

"You never told me what your new job was," Jaehwan murmured sleepily, nose buried in the crook of Hakyeon's endless neck.

"Oh, I didn't?" Hakyeon's surprise was nothing if not completely fake. "I'm going into intelligence, of a kind. The farm we're going to is gonna become my base of operations, and I'm gonna field all kinds of people for the mob, actually. Informants and stuff. I'm gonna pay off your debt."

"They turned you crooked?" Jaehwan smirked into Hakyeon's skin, kissing over his pulse, and with anyone else he'd probably feel guilty that he couldn't take care of his own affairs, but God, he was so tired of kicking himself in the ass over shit that didn't matter.

"They paid better." Hakyeon was as smug as a person could be, even as he preened under the affections of Jaehwan's fingers twining in his hair. "And if anything, _you_ turned me crooked."

Jaehwan couldn't help but laugh, empty hand finding Hakyeon's and squeezing it affectionately. "I'll apologise to you in kisses, if you want."

Hakyeon turned, dusted his nose against Jaehwan's temple. "I would take that sorry, you know."

They fell back asleep like that, all entwined, Hakyeon's warm breath soft against Jaehwan's ear, settling him completely. For the first time in a long time, that nagging instinct, the one that had almost no chance of being right in the first place, stayed quiet, and let him rest, let him have the one commodity he could never have stolen -- hope.

**Author's Note:**

> eternally, find me on [twitter](http://twitter.com/takoyaken) where i am avidly avoiding writing and update schedules like a true adult


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